Cherr Lab

The Cherr Lab has been working on defensins in reproductive biology. Defensins (including ß-defensins) are part of the innate immune system that is understood to be the key defense against disease in invertebrates; homologous peptides exist in invertebrates as “antimicrobial peptides”.

BML researchers (the Cherr Laboratory) are working to addresses molecules and physiological mechanisms involved in fertilization and early development. This research has focused on fertilization biology using plants, invertebrates, lower vertebrates, and mammals.

The Toxicology Laboratory has been participating in a multidisciplinary center award (5 years and just renewed for another 5 years) from the NSF and the EPA that established the University of California Center for the Environmental Implications of Nanomaterials (UC CEIN), based at UCLA and UCSB. This center award has a number of multidisciplinary “themes” that range from chemical engineering to public perception of nanotechnology.

The BML Toxicology Laboratory (G.N. Cherr, Principle Investigator) has focused extensively on Pacific herring in San Francisco Bay in that they are key to the San Francisco Bay ecosystem and represent the last commercial fishery inside of the Bay. The BML Toxicology Group was the first to demonstrate that creosote-treated pier pilings (and the soluble polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons; PAHs) present a danger to herring embryos when eggs are spawned directly on the piling surfaces.